Rural Development

The Rural development Program of The Art of Living is predominantly driven by the yuvacharyas. The yuvacharyas are the youth from the local communities in the villages who have undergone the Youth Leadership Training Program (YLTP). This gives them the skills, motivation and abilities to initiate and lead service projects in their own villages and localities based on their needs.

Only a strong spiritual foundation brings self-esteem and self-confidence that is unshakeable. It is this combination of personal inner strength, as well as skills and leadership training that ensures the long-term effectiveness and sustainability of this programme.

The 5H program aims at ensuring that every rural area/village has Homes for the homeless, Health care, Hygiene, Human Values and Harmony in diversity. Set up in 1997, 5H catalyzes social transformation. The program aims to eradicate poverty, misery, disease and to ensure peace and harmony in rural and tribal areas worldwide.

The individuals and communities at the grassroots become self-reliant both socially and economically, this ensures the effects of the program are long-term and sustainable.

5H Achievements

Reached 40,212 villages

Trained 110,000 rural youth in YLTP

Conducted 165,000 free stress-relief workshops benefiting more than 5,688,000 people

Rural Electrification : Light A Home

Light A Home initiative laid its foundation during October 2012. The aim of this initiative is to bring clean and affordable lighting to 360 million people in India living in 74 million rural households who do not have access to electricity. A majority of these people rely on kerosene and other fuels to meet their lighting needs, which is hazardous to both their health and to the environment.

Till now, the Light A Home Project has touched lives of more than 6,000 such people by providing solar home lighting systems to 1,100 such homes in Bihar, UP, Assam and Jharkhand. The vision is to reach out to 1,00,000 unelectrified homes by 2015.

Organic Farming

The Art of Living has been conducting Chemical Free Farming Workshops since 2007. Over the past years, more than 32,000 farmers have taken up the workshop. The workshop covers techniques for organic farming, making the farmers aware of the harm that is caused by the usage of chemicals in the fields and how the yield decreases gradually due to the usage of chemicals.